An actual offer? No, but I never let things get that far. But I have turned down solicitations from Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon (never heard anything from Facebook though).
Why? Well multiple reasons. For Amazon (and to some extent, Microsoft) - I don't want to live in the Pacific Northwest. Nothing against the area, it looks beautiful, but I live for warm weather.
For Microsoft, in addition to location, I'm an Open Source ideologue, consider Microsoft to the The Evil Empire, and want nothing to do with them.
For Apple, they're another Evil Empire pitching closed-source, locked-down, proprietary products that I want nothing to do with.
For Google, it was much simpler: By the time I heard from them, I was well into starting Fogbeam Labs, and that's my focus right now. I still work a "regular job" during the day, but my overriding passion is to get this company off the ground and make a go of it. I don't see going to work for Google as compatible with that. Plus, GOOG seem (from my outsider's perspective) a bit too big and bureaucratic for my tastes at this point. I'm more of a small company person, unless it's the company I'm running.
OTOH, myself and one of our other co-founders were talking a few days ago, and we commented that we'd consider an "acquihire" scenario from somebody like Google. So that's one way I might wind up at Google or some other $BIGCORP.
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[ 1452 ms ] story [ 1169 ms ] threadWhy? Well multiple reasons. For Amazon (and to some extent, Microsoft) - I don't want to live in the Pacific Northwest. Nothing against the area, it looks beautiful, but I live for warm weather.
For Microsoft, in addition to location, I'm an Open Source ideologue, consider Microsoft to the The Evil Empire, and want nothing to do with them.
For Apple, they're another Evil Empire pitching closed-source, locked-down, proprietary products that I want nothing to do with.
For Google, it was much simpler: By the time I heard from them, I was well into starting Fogbeam Labs, and that's my focus right now. I still work a "regular job" during the day, but my overriding passion is to get this company off the ground and make a go of it. I don't see going to work for Google as compatible with that. Plus, GOOG seem (from my outsider's perspective) a bit too big and bureaucratic for my tastes at this point. I'm more of a small company person, unless it's the company I'm running.
OTOH, myself and one of our other co-founders were talking a few days ago, and we commented that we'd consider an "acquihire" scenario from somebody like Google. So that's one way I might wind up at Google or some other $BIGCORP.